Tuesday, August 21, 2012

The Bible and Economics

Part of an ongoing series looking at all the many passages in the Bible that deal with wealth and poverty issues. You can see the links to the other passages in the series under the heading "The Bible and Economics" below.

Today, I'm looking at the Gospel of Mark, Chapters 3 - 6.

You can see others in this series in the "Bible and Economics" link below (on the left).

As I noted in the last time I posted on this series (from Mark 1 and 2), there seems to me to be an undercurrent of Mark speaking to economic issues in ways that may not be as overt as some of the more direct passages (ie, "Woe to you who are rich..."), but I think it's worth looking at and considering how these words would have been heard by its first century audience.

For your consideration...

Another time Jesus went into the synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Stand up in front of everyone.”

Then Jesus asked them, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they remained silent.

He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored.

Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.

~Mark 3: 1-6

This is part of a series of action-oriented stories of Jesus healing the poor sick folk around him and his first dealings with the religious authorities. Here we see, early in Jesus' ministry according to Mark, that the Pharisees were already plotting to kill him, and watching his every word, looking for some justification for prosecuting Jesus.

One question that arises, to me, is, Why are the pharisees so offended by Jesus' doing of good deeds? Why is his ministry to the poor and ill and his healing the sick so dangerous that they think they need to kill him? And not only that, but what was Jesus preaching and teaching that could unite groups (Pharisees and Herodians) who would normally be enemies?

Yet another point we see here is Jesus' use of questions to confront the religious authorities - questions that tend to go unanswered. "Is it WRONG to do good on the Sabbath?" Jesus asks them.

Well, obviously, of course it's always good to do good, even on the Sabbath. That's just common sense. But the religious authorities of Jesus' day (much like some religious authorities today) had much at stake in their claims of having the "right" interpretations of Scripture and Jesus' question called into question their interpretation (which said NO work could be done on the Sabbath - they held to a unreasonably literal interpretation of that ancient rule) and so, unable to answer the question rationally without pointing out the fallacy of their literal interpretation they chose to remain silent.

This (and Jesus' obvious anger at their hypocrisy) was calling into question their authority - both for the religious elite (the Pharisees) and the political elite (the Herodians) and that threatened them so much that they resorted to claims of heresy, of blasphemy - going so far as to call Jesus' work "of the devil" in the next chapter - and they felt they had to kill him to rid themselves of this threat to their power and beliefs.

But is there also an economic question here? Healing in Jesus' day (as it is today) was a money-making enterprise for most (Jesus, on the other hand, downplayed the healing aspect of what he was doing, repeatedly telling people NOT to spread the word of their healing at Jesus' hands and saying "YOUR faith has healed you..." rather than promoting his miracle-making chops).

I think a reasonable question to ask is: Whose bank account was Jesus cutting into by these healings? If we followed the money trail, would some of it wind up at the door of the Pharisees and Herodians?

I don't know, but it seems like a good question and at least a possibility.

Another economic angle here with the many healings we find in the first several chapters of Mark is that those who were sick were also more likely to be the poor, so this would certainly fit in with Jesus' proclamation that he had come to bring "Good news to the poor, Healing for the sick..." There are many stories of other healings in the first five chapters of Mark, but I'm going to jump on up to Mark 6, where Jesus sends out the Twelve to preach and heal...

Then Jesus went around teaching from village to village. Calling the Twelve to him, he began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over impure spirits.

These were his instructions: “Take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals but not an extra shirt. Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town.

And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, leave that place and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.”

~Mark 6:6-11

Here, we have the example of Jesus - the God who had no place to lay his head, who lived simply, sharing a communal life with his band of followers. And when Jesus sends them out to do a bit of preaching, he sends them out, likewise, with little/no money or resources, but to rely upon community kindness for their needs.

Interestingly, we can see this simple community in contrast with the extravagant political community of King Herod, in the rest of chapter 6. This was Herod Antipas, I'm told, who was a Jewish leader with deep ties to the Roman occupiers, the ones the Herodians were loyal to...

On his birthday Herod gave a banquet for his high officials and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee. When the daughter of Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his dinner guests.

The king said to the girl, “Ask me for anything you want, and I’ll give it to you.” And he promised her with an oath, “Whatever you ask I will give you, up to half my kingdom...”

~Mark 6: 21-23

You may remember that this is the story where John the Baptist goes on to lose his head, when the dancing daughter asks for that as her "prize..."

Quite a different "kingdom" from the one that Jesus showed by example and by teaching...

18 comments:

I think a reasonable question to ask is: Whose bank account was Jesus cutting into by these healings? If we followed the money trail, would some of it wind up at the door of the Pharisees and Herodians?

So Jesus was undercutting his competitors and driving down the market price of a healing?

You are once again imposing and injecting meaning not supported by the text itself.

Mark 3:1-6

Here you begin as if you get it. The threat to the position of the religious and political leaders of Jesus' preaching is obvious. But then you go to fantasy land to force your economic preferences upon the text. Medicine is a money making enterprise always, regardless of the intent of the practitioner and the amount or form of compensation he receives. If you want to suppose that this also pissed off the religious and political leaders, that might work if you could establish that either was also the source of all medical help. I don't know where this is stated in Scripture, though I admit I'm not sure.

But if the sick that Jesus healed were mostly amongst the poor, then there was no economic threat to those who practiced medicine, since the poor could not pay anyway.

Mark 6:6-11

Jesus' instructions to the twelve (and later to the 72) had more to do with intending they focus on their mission than with intending they set some kind of example of simple living. It was not uncommon for false teachers to make their living on pretending to be holy men. It was also too easy for someone to be swayed by personal gain and thereby contort the message to keep the compensation coming.

Even today, preachers are to simply teach and preach and to eat and live, must rely on the donations of congregants. (That's the plan, anyway.) If people want to hear the message, they will likely be willing to put up the teacher in order to do so. However, if everyone that hears this message that YOU preach and takes it to heart, there will be no extra food, clothing, space or money for the preacher to receive and he would then need to give up the calling in order to survive. THAT was the reason Jesus and the his followers lived simply. NOT to dissuade people from thriving financially, but to focus on the message as well as to ward off accusations of bad intent.

Mark 6:21-23

Huh? I see you make no attempt to make a connection between this story and your socialist economics. But you can't resist the temptation to insinuate that one exists.

So Jesus was undercutting his competitors and driving down the market price of a healing?

Possibly engaging in illegal monopoly violations, yep.

Marshall...

But then you go to fantasy land to force your economic preferences upon the text.

I've raised questions, Marshall. I have not "forced" anything. It seems like a reasonable question to me.

No harm in asking questions, my friend.

Marshall...

I see you make no attempt to make a connection between this story and your socialist economics. But you can't resist the temptation to insinuate that one exists.

Asking questions is not advocating "socialist economics." In fact, as oft pointed out, I'm not a believer in socialism.

I'm pointing out the difference between the oft-seen elegant beauty of the simple lifestyle advocated by Jesus and his followers and the more ostentatious, hyper-consumptive, gluttonous lifestyle of his opponents.

Are you writing to defend the practices of Team Herod as a good model for healthy living?

"Are you writing to defend the practices of Team Herod as a good model for healthy living?"

No. I'm writing to defend against the practice of injecting meaning into Scripture that the text itself does not intend. Christianity is NOT about living simply. There is no call to do so. What you confuse as such is merely the teaching of priorities: God above everything else. We are not taught to avoid wealth. We are taught to avoid worshiping wealth, putting its accumulation above our devotion to God. Having only what we need means having nothing for those in need. It is a self-destructive philosophy and is contradictory to the notion of charitable giving. It also puts us in a position of great risk in that we have nothing in reserve should the worst befall us, making us a burden on others unnecessarily.

"I think a reasonable question to ask is: Whose bank account was Jesus cutting into by these healings?"

How in the world is this question the least bit reasonable given the passage that supposedly provoked it? Questions like these distract from the lesson of the passage which was NOT economic in nature. You do nobody any favors by this practice of yours. If you are so concerned with what the Bible says about the lust for money, you'd serve others better by restricting your comments to those verses that actually address the issue, rather than by contorting verses that don't in order to suggest that they do.

Dan, it's striking that, on the subject of economic issues in Mark 3-6, and en route to your claim that Jesus tended to focus on healing the poor and thereby earned the hostility of the religious leaders, you skipped a very notable exception to both parts of that claim: Jairus, the leader of the synagogue who asked Jesus to heal his daughter, in 5:22-43. Even though Jesus raised his daughter from the dead, you don't mention this event explicitly, focusing instead on the opulence of Herod and Salome.

At any rate, I believe your summary of the basic narrative facts of Mark 3-6 do not bear close scrutiny.

1) You write, "One question that arises, to me, is, Why are the pharisees so offended by Jesus' doing of good deeds?"

What evidence is there that it's His good deeds that offends them?

In the passage you quote, the specific issue wasn't healing, it was healing on the Sabbath, and it's clear that this WAS NOT what upset them. It was a pretext, an excuse to attack Jesus.

"Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath."

The way you put it, the Pharisees were primarily upset about Jesus' healing the sick, and the charge of blasphemy was trumped up as a result of His real offenses.

2) Jesus challenged their authority, and, you write, "that threatened them so much that they resorted to claims of heresy, of blasphemy."

But the charge wasn't something to which they resorted: it was THEIR FIRST CHARGE AGAINST HIM, in chapter 2:5-7.

Jesus claimed the authority to forgive sins, the leaders rightly believed that only God can forgive, and they concluded that therefore Jesus blasphemed. That conclusion was wrong but it certainly appears to have been sincere.

Mark's narrative is this:

- Jesus claimed to forgive sins, and in fact He healed the paralytic as evidence of His authority to forgive (2:10-11).

- The leaders balked, NOT at the miraculous healing, but at the claim to forgive sins.

- They subsequently looked for reasons to denigrate Jesus: His associating with sinners (2:16), the absence of austere (simple?) living (2:18), and snacking on a Sabbath (2:24).

- They explicitly sought reasons to accuse Jesus, and FOR THAT REASON they criticized Jesus' SPECIFICALLY healing on the Sabbath, not His healing in general.

Your take seems to have things exactly backwards, treating the healing as the real complaint -- and healing, per se, not merely healing on a holy day -- and the charge of blasphemy as manufactured.

3) You paint the Pharisees as overly beholden to Scripture, but in chapter 7:1-13, Jesus' claim is that they have allowed manmade traditions to trump God's commandment, and for the latter He evidently means Scripture.

Grasping what the text plainly says comes before any questions and speculations about what the text doesn't say: the former activity is both more important than and logically prior to the latter.

I'm not suggesting they killed Jesus for doing nice things. I think the story arc of the Gospels indicates pretty clearly that the leaders (religious and political) of the day considered Jesus to be a threat and that is why they killed him.

I'm just asking "Why did this happen..." to try to get a better grasp on what was going on.

What was this confrontation like?

What brought this on?

Was there a money motive on the religious leaders' part?

I find these reasonable and thoughtful questions to ask as I meditate upon the Word. If you don't, you don't have to ask them. Do you mind terribly if I do?

Dan, I for one don't "terribly" mind your raising any questions about what the Gospels omit, but I think it's unlikely you'll get meaningful answers if you start out with a poor grasp of what the Gospels include.

Here you make another claim that I don't think is easy to substantiate.

"I think the story arc of the Gospels indicates pretty clearly that the leaders (religious and political) of the day considered Jesus to be a threat and that is why they killed him."

Where exactly do the Gospels indicate at all that the political leaders considered Jesus a threat? Where do they indicate that they considered Him a threat that needed to be eliminated? And where do the four books indicate any of this "pretty clearly"?

The only example I can think of is Herod the Great's attempt to exterminate the infant Messiah, and that's hardly a great example of the effect of Jesus' words and deeds, since that event occurred literally decades prior to His public ministry.

His son Herod Antipas had John the Baptist beheaded, but as Mark 6 clearly tells us, it was because John infuriated Herod's wife. She was mad that he preached against their marriage (not some political agenda), and she had to manipulate her overtly reluctant husband to get him to kill John.

Mark tells us outright, "Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he kept him safe." (6:20)

In Luke 13:31, some Pharisees told Jesus that Herod was plotting to kill Him, but this second-hand claim from sources with at least questionable motives is belied by Luke's own account of Jesus' encounter with Herod on Good Friday, in chapter 23: Herod mocked Him but didn't act on the opportunity to kill Him, insteading sending Him back to Pilate.

And all four gospels are clear that Pontius Pilate believed Jesus of Nazareth to be guilty of ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Pilate was feckless in capitulating to the Pharisees' demands to have him crucified, he could hardly be described as ruthlessly seeking His destruction.

"Jesus confronted the System, and that's why the Man had to kill him:" the claim is certainly dramatic, and it must have its appeals to people of certain political bents, but if it's isn't credibly rooted in the text, it seems presumptuous in the extreme to take the claim and run with it, raising "thoughtful questions" on what is ultimately a fictionalization of Jesus' life.

I for one don't "terribly" mind your raising any questions about what the Gospels omit, but I think it's unlikely you'll get meaningful answers if you start out with a poor grasp of what the Gospels include.

That is so true. For all of us.

If I think I might find help on that front from you, I'll be sure to ask.

Where exactly do the Gospels indicate at all that the political leaders considered Jesus a threat? Where do they indicate that they considered Him a threat that needed to be eliminated? And where do the four books indicate any of this "pretty clearly"?

The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the HERODIANS against him, how to destroy him.

~Mark 3

Both the Pharisees and the Herodians could be considered political powers, but especially the Herodians. You think otherwise?

What I think, Dan, is that the gospels emphasize the enmity of the religious leaders, not the political leaders.

Caiaphas actively pushed for Jesus' execution.

Herod Antipas had to be manipulated to murder John the Baptist, and he only mocked Jesus when had the chance to murder him. Pilate was pressured into handing Jesus over to be crucified, and all four gospels are perfectly clear that Pilate thought Jesus was completely innocent of committing any crime.

Indeed the Herodians are portrayed negatively in the Gospels; I went too far in suggesting that there was literally no evidence of any political enmity, and so I both apologize and retract the claim.

But, going by Strong's count of the actual word in Greek, the Herodians are still only mentioned by name in all four Gospels a total of THREE times.

By comparison, the scribes are mentioned 62 times, and the Pharisees are mentioned 87 times.

The scribes and Pharisees wielded political power, indeed, but that power derived from their religious authority, and it's worth noting that, whatever you think happened "off the page," the actual arguments recorded in the Gospels focus on religious disputes, such as Jesus' claim to forgive sins.

The wholly secular political powers that be are bit players in the Gospel narrative, and so, at the very least, one can question the legitimacy of your giving equal weight to the religious enemies and the political enemies, as part of your essentially political narrative of Jesus' mission.

It seems that you don't want even to consider disagreements about the interpretation of the text on which your "reasonable and thoughtful" questions are based, at least not unless you explicitly solicit them.

"If I think I might find help on that front from you, I'll be sure to ask.

"Thanks."

How humble, how open-minded, and how unlike the hidebound attitutes of the self-righteous Pharisees.

What I think, Dan, is that the gospels emphasize the enmity of the religious leaders, not the political leaders...

The problem here appears to be that when I referenced "political leaders" you presumed I was referring to Caesar and Herod. I'm glad to clarify: By "political leaders," I just meant political leaders in general - primarily at a smaller scale. Since the religious leaders had political power, I was including them, along with the Herodians.

We agree that THESE political leaders sought to get Jesus crucified.

We agree that the King and the Governor participated more or less unwillingly with Jesus' crucifixion. Indeed, Pontius said he found no crimes to have been done by Jesus. And yet, the political system did end up giving Jesus a capital punishment.

"The problem here appears to be that when I referenced 'political leaders' you presumed I was referring to Caesar and Herod. I'm glad to clarify: By 'political leaders,' I just meant political leaders in general - primarily at a smaller scale. Since the religious leaders had political power, I was including them, along with the Herodians."

In my defense, Dan, you originally wrote about "the religious elite (the Pharisees) and the political elite (the Herodians)."

And you originally wrote about "the extravagant political community of King Herod."

I don't think it was presumptuous to conclude that you see the Gospel narrative through a political lens, Jesus versus the Man.

One can reasonably infer that even from your clarification.

"And yet, the political system did end up giving Jesus a capital punishment."

The Pharisees were the robed, presumably bearded religious leaders who also wielded political power.

The most salient feature was their religious leadership, since their most serious objections were theological in nature, e.g., over Jesus' claim to have the authority to forgive sins.

You COULD describe Jesus as fighting against men with robes, as if their clothing was crucial, but that misses the obvious point that His followers presumably wore robes, as did Jesus Himself.

You COULD describe Jesus as fighting against men with beards, as if their facial hair was crucial, but presumably He and His disciples had beards, too, or at least a good number of them did.

You COULD describe Jesus as fighting against Jews, but the Twelve were Jewish, too.

All of these approaches would be accurate but misleading ways to describe the conflict, the latter being anti-Semetic to boot.

IN THE SAME WAY, describing the Pharisees in primarily political fashion misses the point that Herod didn't hate Jesus enough to kill Him and Pilate tried to have Him freed.

Where we disagree is the spin that you put on the narratives, and your clarification doesn't address any of the three points I originally mentioned.

1) You wrote that "the pharisees [were] so offended by Jesus' doing of good deeds," but the text doesn't support that conclusion.

2) You wrote that Jesus' challenge to their authority "threatened them so much that they resorted to claims of heresy, of blasphemy," but that too is unsupported by the text: their charge of blasphemy seems sincere, based on Jesus' claim to forgive sins.

3) You describe the Pharisees as overly rigid in adhering to Scripture, but that is also inaccurate if you go by the text: in Mark 7, Jesus rebukes them for letting manmade tradtions trump God's commandment as evidently revealed in His written word.

"And yet, the political system did end up giving Jesus a capital punishment."

That is just a statement of facts, right? I mean, the occupied Jews of Rome had no authority to implement a capital punishment - that was the purview of the Roman empire, and the Jewish political and religious leaders worked through the Roman political system (albeit via some kangaroo court-type actions) to have the Romans crucify Jesus for a capital crime (trumped up, though it may be).

I don't think you really disagree with that point, right?

I don't think I'm factually far off in saying the religious and political leaders of the time conspired together to put Jesus to death. You disagree? Okay, disagree.

Those other three claims I list above, I dispute as contrary to the facts as they are given in the Gospels.

But this other claim IS factual, that the political system put Jesus to death, but it can be over-emphasized.

I recall that, a few years back, I asked you to list what you think are the essential doctrines of Christianity. Your included this claim:

"Jesus was killed by the religious and the powerful of the day in the manner of the typical political prisoner for having the audacity of teaching about Another Realm, Another Kingdom, another way that undermined (or at least so they thought) the rich and powerful;"

But you omitted the Bible's even clearer claim that JESUS CAME TO DIE FOR OUR SINS, that He came to give His life as a ransom for many, to lay down His life as the good shepherd for his sheep, to shed His blood for the forgiveness of sins.

I noted that even then:

"You attribute Christ's death to the earthly powers that be, but don't mention the other clear teaching of the Bible, that the Father sent His Son to die, and that the Son came to die."

I believe it's misleading to emphasize the political system's culpability over God's own initiative.

Suppose a man goes to a friend's house, and they go off to a bordello. He comes home late at night, and his wife asks where he went. "I went to Mike's house" is factually true but entirely misleading.

There is such a thing as a material omission, and there is a such a thing as emphasizing certain facts so as to give the wrong impression.

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"An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a definite proposition... A contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of anything the other person says."
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